


A Stone Gargoyle's Unbeating Heart

by BastardBin



Series: BB's Demise au [2]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Cub has a whole thing about heartbeats too, M/M, Season/Series 06, Sharing Body Heat, Touch-Starved, demise - Freeform, how gay? yes, it gets gay, lowkey fluff without plot, more like Cub exhibiting coldblooded creature behaviors, mumbo highkey has feelings, references DFTR, this got out of hand, written on mobile so there may be some missing capitalizations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BastardBin/pseuds/BastardBin
Summary: When you've been dead for long enough, there are things you start to miss.Like the heartbeat.And the warmth.And... the lack of fear from the other, still living people.Good thing Mumbo's here to be caring regardless of which side his friends may be on, because that's exactly what Cub needs.
Relationships: Mumbo/Cub
Series: BB's Demise au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744789
Comments: 32
Kudos: 127





	A Stone Gargoyle's Unbeating Heart

**Author's Note:**

> extra title is extra, i regret nothing
> 
> i was trying to write a "Mumbo gets frustrated at his redstone and is helped by [redacted hermit]" fic and looking back on s6 episodes to see what projects he struggled with, and in the process found the episode during Demise where he was farming wood and turned around and just. there was Cub. staring at him. being spooky. and writer brain wENT-- and now we're here

Sometimes, Mumbo has to remind himself that he really is a bit of a fool. Really, how could he have forgotten he has his very own log production system in his massive pit of a lag district? Though to be fair he has a lot of machines, and he doesn’t need logs very often when he’s made a base out of concrete and glass, but the point still stands. He should be able to remember the things he has spent endless time designing and wiring together, but instead, it takes him an embarrassingly equal amount of time to remember he has them at his disposal at all.

It’s ridiculous, really. This is going on the spoon counter, he swears it, and he hasn’t even built the thing yet.

Just wait until he forgets that he’s built it, too, after it’s done. Sighing at himself and his own shortcomings, Mumbo turns away, carefully snapping closed the filled shulker sitting beneath the output of the machine. For a moment he debates, thinking back and forth over how much he may or may not need for what he has planned. Surely it can’t be all that much, but at the same time, he’d rather have more than enough rather than too little and have to return here later. It’s with that thought in mind that he sets the filled shulker aside, replacing it with an empty one, and goes right back to putting saplings into his contraption one at a time.

It’s tedious, mind numbing work, and he wishes he could automate the entire process so that he could at least work on something else meanwhile. It’s still better than the alternative, though, the absolute soul dragging grind of trying to gather this much material manually, so he supposes he can’t complain too much.

But it does leave his mind to wander, thoughts drifting as the action of placing a new sapling each tick fades away into the autopilot of his subconscious. Designs and circuits he’s going to need, optimizations he could use, all flit around in his mind one by one for him to mull over, backed by nothing but silence filled with the sounds of his machines around him. It’s soothing, surrounded in nothing but the functional noises of his work, of the proof that everything he’s built works as it should. The accompanying silence is soothing, too; proof that he’s alone, safe to relax without another soul to be seen.

Maybe that’s why it’s so jarring when he turns again and his eyes fall upon the stone-still gray shape of a person standing on the cliffs beside him. 

His heart jumps into his throat, stuttering in startled surprise, while his silent audience continues to stand in place, unmoving. Without a single word, a single noise to announce his presence, and not an ounce of change in his expression, Cub only stares directly at him like a gargoyle waiting to pounce. His white eyes give nothing away, inhuman in their piercingly undead stare, and if Mumbo didn’t know better he’d almost think he wasn’t real at all. That he’s just a statue after all, a caricature built just to scare him; but as he moves about his platform, feelings of fear rising up in him and an indecisiveness about what to do, Cub’s head ever so subtly follows him.

It starts to sink in, now, that this is the first time he’s seen Cub since his… since he joined the other side. He’s been avoiding everyone else, locked away in bunkers dotted all over in order to work on his projects without fear, leaving him well and fully oblivious to the goings-on of both sides. He hadn’t seen, until now, what demising and rising from the grave had done to his fellow Hermit; the way Cub is the same color as the greyscale cliff wall behind him, the way his white eyes seem to bore right through Mumbo, the way his entire face seems to have morphed into something otherworldly and  _ dangerous. _

It’s eerie, the vibe emanating off of the other as something purely predatory. It settles in Mumbo’s stomach as an uneasy feeling of wrongness, the uncanny feeling that something just isn’t right, and it bothers him. Game of life and death or not, the demised Hermits are still his friends, and he doesn’t like the way Cub’s presence alone scares him.

But maybe he’s right to be afraid, he realizes, gaze trailing down to the TNT in Cub’s hand. Its stark red color stands out far too clearly against Cub’s lifeless skin, and the way he tilts his head in an eerily curious way sends chills down the redstoner’s spine.

He isn’t sure what to do. He feels cornered, like some kind of prey, and he has the strangest feeling that Cub will pounce if he tries to move, to escape before this encounter can turn deadly.

The moment stretches on, seeming to last forever. Some of his machines lapse into silence, going into automatic shutdown without his input to keep them running, and it only makes everything feel that much more tense. He knows the demised Hermits are out to get everyone, even him, their sights set on his warmblooded and still-breathing self. And he knows far too well what the rules of the game entailed; that Cub could do anything to him here, could set off enough explosives to send what’s left of him to the very moon, or even something as simple as running him through with the enchanted sword he can see barely obscured under Cub’s coat. It’s no holds barred for the greyskins, a freedom to take their living friends’ souls in any way they deem necessary until none remain.

Mumbo can’t help the feeling of fear swirling in him, manifesting in a trembling, fidgety feeling in his hands and the sensation of sweat beading on the back of his neck. Part of him wishes Cub would do something already, shatter the tension stifling the air and suffocating him more than an actual loss of air would.

Even so, he isn’t ready for the way Cub, still as stone for so many long minutes straight, suddenly moves in a flash. Mumbo’s fears skyrocket, heart lurching into his throat as Cub leaps from his ledge with a speed no living thing would be capable of. He lands on the platform with Mumbo soundlessly, steps far too light for a human person, all without ever seeming to blink. His vivid white gaze continues to bore right into the redstoner, right through him, making him feel uneasily stripped bare to his very soul itself.

Maybe Cub  _ can _ see his soul; maybe he can see it fluttering in knowing fear, trapped here with full awareness of what his undead friends would do to him given the chance. His expression hasn’t changed once, locked instead into the cold and calculating stare of what Mumbo can only describe as a killer, giving nothing away. He can’t help but wonder what Cub is thinking, behind that rock solid mask of ice. Is he satisfied about having cornered one of the living? Smug about being moments away from demising another for their ranks? Mumbo can’t be sure.

Without a word, Cub turns, setting his TNT down onto the platform beside them. It’s a casual movement, somehow the most natural thing he’s done so far, and yet Mumbo can’t keep himself from flinching at the sound of it making contact with the stone floor. He’s sure Cub has a flint and steel somewhere, that he can end them both in a split second, and even with his relatively calm acceptance of this situation, Mumbo feels the desperate will to live panicking within him.

But there’s nowhere to go, and no way to escape. He’s at Cub’s mercy.

And Cub seems to take notice of his fear, turning back to him with a long and silent stare. He starts to wonder, again, if maybe Cub is amused; if he thinks the fear of him is entertaining, if maybe he feels powerful. But the thought is cut off with the way his expression finally changes, though it’s subtle.

Ever so slightly, his sharp brows furrow together, creasing the stony skin of his forehead. His mouth was set in an almost snarl already, just the barest glimpse of sharpened teeth showing behind his lip, but now the corners of his mouth turn downward more than they had. Even through the game’s magic, the way it’s morphed him into something beyond his natural self, Mumbo can still see the unhappiness in that barest of expression changes.

“... Cub?” Mumbo finds himself asking, concern for his friend winning out over the fear of the demised.

His voice seems to cut Cub straight to the core, a shudder wracking through the undead Hermit, and for a split second Mumbo isn’t sure if he should be afraid or not. But then Cub is moving again before he can decide, and instead of pain followed by darkness as he’s ripped from life, he’s met with the feeling of ice cold arms wrapping around him and  _ clinging _ with desperation.

It’s startlingly cold, reminiscent of the time Iskall stuck ice under his suit jacket, even more startling now with the knowledge of that sensation being from Cub’s very skin itself. It reminds him just what the game has done to the others, if the gut feeling of wrongness wasn’t enough to tell him that. They’re  _ different, _ they aren’t quite the same as they were. He’s heard Grian talk about the way Ren seems to have to fight off the urge to kill just to speak to him normally, he knows something about their greyskinned friends has changed in a dark and surreal way.

And yet, cold as they are, the arms wrapped around him are gentle yet desperate. Cub isn’t trying to crush him, to squeeze the life out of him per the instinctual demand of the game; they’re begging for contact, and he hasn’t the heart to refuse.

Cub lets out a ragged breath as Mumbo returns the hug, pulling the undead Hermit firm to his chest, despite the lack of a need for air. It only goes to show just how affected he is, just how much he  _ needs _ this, especially as he surges forward to press his equally cold face against Mumbo’s throat, tucking himself beneath his chin. It makes Mumbo shiver, wracked with a sudden chill from the living icebox clinging to him and sapping his body heat, but he can’t bring himself to mind. Cub’s fingers are trembling where they wrench in the back of his suit jacket, gripping the fabric with inhuman strength.

It’s a wonder how he can manage to be so powerful, so terrifying, and yet so small and somehow fragile all at once.

Mumbo isn’t sure exactly what’s gotten into him, exactly why he’s dropped any pretense of the predatory undead aura that he emanated before, but he doesn’t really need to know what the reason is. The fact that Cub needs him, or at least someone, is abundantly clear. And regardless of some game, of its effect on his fellow Hermits, of being on opposite sides, none of that matters in the face of a friend in need.

Cub melts into him as he rubs soothing circles into his back, cold breaths puffing against his throat and raising goosebumps in the flesh there. The other Hermit only seems to cling tighter, pressing well and fully against Mumbo until the backs of his legs meet the block wall behind him, and for a moment his heart stutters in his throat again. It’s an instinctive fear, a worry of stumbling off the edge and plummeting far below; but Cub pauses there, tightening his hold again, and pressing his lips against the hammering pulse in Mumbo’s neck.

Mumbo has  _ no idea _ what the sound that escapes him at the contact could be described as, but he’s a bit more focused on the feelings coursing through him from Cub’s touch. His noise only seems to spur the other on, Cub pinning him to the wall at his back, his cold lips parting against that sensitive spot in his neck. He isn’t sure if it’s from the sensation alone or from the ice cold chill of the contact, of Cub’s breath itself, but a shiver wracks through him yet again.

It’s met with a chuckle from Cub, a starkly warm sound that makes Mumbo’s heart leap in place, and then punctuated with his teeth as he gently bites down. This time Mumbo knows exactly what the sound that escapes him is, his head falling back and only managing to grant Cub even more access. It seems to please him, a happy hum rumbling against the redstoner’s throat as Cub drifts elsewhere, nibbling trails of both ice and fire on his skin as he goes. It’s so cold, his icy breath puffing over dampened skin, and yet his teeth raise pure heat in their wake that leaves Mumbo a mess in his grasp.

Faintly, somewhere in the back of his hazy mind, Mumbo wonders how this went from comforting a friend to Cub sending his heart and body haywire, but he isn’t complaining in the least.

Once he’s made it around to the other side, Cub bites down again, firmer than before. Mumbo squirms in his grip at the faint pinch, but it’s followed so soon by soft and apologetic kisses that he can’t be upset. Cub doesn’t feel as cold as he did before, either, and at first Mumbo thinks he’s just getting acclimated to the cooler temperature. But adjusting his grip, trailing his hands up to grasp behind Cub’s neck, only seems to show that the greyskin really does feel warmer than he did before. It’s almost like he’s absorbing Mumbo’s body heat, acclimating with him right to something more comfortable.

Neither of them are shivering anymore.

With more willpower than he thought he had, Mumbo pushes back slightly, pulling Cub away from his throat to look into his eyes again. They show nothing, just as before, expressionless orbs of solid blank white. But as he looks closer, feels his heart trying to level out into a normal pace again, he can see more there. It’s in the way Cub’s lips are parted ever so slightly, the downward curve of a snarl well and fully gone, and the way his eyes are a bit wider than normal. It’s almost questioning, like he’s just now realized exactly what situation they’ve ended up in together, and his next words prove it.

“I-- I’m sorry, I didn’t--” He sounds worried, guilty; and most of all, normal. There’s none of the haunting, otherworldly voice Grian described the undead as having when they’re losing control, when they’re most affected by the instinct to kill. He’s nothing more than himself right now, just as he always was. “I didn’t  _ ask-- _ ”

But Mumbo doesn’t need his apologies, doesn’t need his concern. Before Cub can finish the thought, before he can back away like Mumbo can already feel him trying to do, the redstoner pulls him in again. Instead of pulling him into a hug, of tucking his head under his chin again, Mumbo guides him into a soft kiss. It makes the other go still in his grip for just a split moment, tensing up in startled surprise, before he breaks and surges forward. Mumbo can  _ feel _ the relief in his touch, in the way Cub seems to melt into him even more than before, and he feels himself turn equally to putty in response.

He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, with the way they rest on Mumbo’s hips at first before trailing all the way up to tangle in his hair and back again. It’s like he wants to be everywhere at once, as if he can’t get enough of him, and something about that thought makes Mumbo’s heart do a warm, melty thing that he thinks might be some kind of feelings. He doesn’t have time to figure it out, though, not when Cub nips at his lip with one of those sharp teeth and grants himself access within, well and fully turning whatever was left of Mumbo’s thoughts to pleased mush.

He’s not sure when he went from the wall behind him pressed to the backs of his thighs to being pulled up to sit on it, but with the way Cub pulls his legs around his waist, the how doesn’t matter at all in his heated mind. Everything is hazy, and it’s only once Cub pulls away to pant cool breath over his wet lips that he realizes air is a thing at least one of them needs and it isn’t Cub. As he gasps in a deep breath to fill his burning lungs, Cub drifts elsewhere, leaning past him just enough to turn those pointed teeth on the shell of his ear. At the same time, he feels a hand tug at his shirt, undoing a single button to dip beneath and press against his hammering heart.

“It’s a beautiful sound.” Cub murmurs into his ear, his voice a tone of pure appreciative awe. “You don’t really realize until it’s gone, just how nice it is. Yours might be especially nice, though.”

A shiver wracks its way down his spine at those words, at the breath against his ear. With each passing moment he’s feeling more and more like he’s dreaming, suspended on a cloud far above reality, and yet he’s grounded by the firm and secure arm Cub wraps around him. Oddly enough, despite the vague eerieness to Cub’s statement, to the faint and very ignored knowledge that he  _ is _ undead and on the opposing team, and the long forgotten fear from earlier, Mumbo has never felt safer.

“Everything is so cold now. The others are cold, I’m cold, the deadquarters is cold. I… I never realized how much I’d miss a warm touch.” Cub continues, explaining what’s gotten into him, the faintest of sad notes making its way into his voice. It catches Mumbo’s attention, pulls his mind out of the kiss drunk haze, and makes all of the pieces click together fully. The other’s lips dip down to his neck again, brushing over his pulse with a kind of reverence that makes it beat that much harder.

Resisting the way his coherent thoughts want to slip right back under, especially as Cub parts his lips around the skin above Mumbo’s pulse, he forces his thoughts into a line. “Y-you know, Cub, if you need this-- if you need, uh, warmth or touch, or… I’m not  _ opposed _ \--” He tries, words interspersed with breathless gasps as Cub nips at his exposed neck.

It’s enough to make the other pull away, to pin him with another ever so subtle expression that Mumbo can only identify as a sort of suspended disbelief. “You should be afraid, you know?” Cub tells him, a flat kind of disappointment in his voice.

“Well, I’m not.” Mumbo shoots back, wincing at how much he sounds like a stubborn Grian. Cub blinks at him a few times, seemingly having similar thoughts, before his near frozen expression finally breaks into a real  _ smile. _

Mumbo is well and fully sure his heart stops beating at the sight of it, sucking a strangled breath into his lungs that does nothing to calm the feelings bubbling within him.

“I suppose you would have run away long before now if you were afraid.” The undead Hermit’s words are lighter, sounding happy at the fact Mumbo is here with him. At him  _ not _ being afraid of him, and suddenly, his noticeable unhappiness earlier makes far more sense. He was unhappy at Mumbo’s fear of him, at Mumbo’s distrustful unease.

Maybe he’s tired of being feared. Combined with being cold, of being what seems to be some level of touch starved, and everyone being too afraid of the greyskins to let any of them near… Well, that explains a lot.

More than ever, it makes Mumbo feel for him. A combination of affection and sympathy warms through him, and far more gently even than the first time, he pulls Cub back toward him.

All of the previous, heated desperation is gone, replaced only by a soft, gentle care as their lips meet in feather light touches. Cub’s hand drifts up from Mumbo’s racing heart to cup his cheek, tilting his head ever so slightly to fit their lips together that much more perfectly. Any fear he might’ve had for the other is long,  _ long _ gone, replaced now completely with the sensation of Cub’s delicate touch that he knows will be burned into his memory for ages to come.

He finds his hands wandering, slowly exploring down every inch of Cub’s chest in a methodical, reverent way that he knows will help to further erase that feeling of lonely doubt from Cub’s mind. And he’s right, if the way Cub sighs against his lips means anything, the way he seems to melt with every ounce of tension bleeding away.

Their embrace is soft, loving; wandering hands set at a pace of only their own, dictated by nothing else, not a single outside force in this world mattering to either of them within the arms of the other. It’s not exactly what Mumbo expected his day to turn into, but really, he’d have it no other way.


End file.
